


Laundry day

by BrilliantlyHorrid



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4, And future, Coulson just wants to help, Daisy's super suit, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/pseuds/BrilliantlyHorrid
Summary: “Great,” he said, watching as Fitz folded it and placed it on the table. “And how do you clean it?”Fitz’s eyebrow furrowed. “Clean it?”“Yes, clean it,” he said. “Sometimes clothes tend to get dirty.”Or sweaty, or bloody. He’d spent enough time with SHIELD to know exactly how unpleasant it could get. (He’d also spent no small amount of time with Skye. Daisy. After missions, in recovery, in the field. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but she did not always smell like, well, daisies. No one did.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> AKA how Phil Coulson ended up in charge of washing Daisy's super suit.
> 
> Based on a random tweet or interview where Chloe described how difficult it was for wardrobe to wash Daisy's suit. Yup. 
> 
> (Also, a request from Becketted for "Established-and-happy-and-safe Cousy fluff ")
> 
> Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!

It started off innocuously enough; just some carelessness or lack of time resulting in an oversight that would be corrected soon. Right?

“It looks great,” Coulson said, lifting one of the sleeves up from the table and running a thumb over the strange fabric. It seemed thin but also sturdy; flexible but not completely flimsy. And he knew that was only the first glance. Sure enough Fitz lifted the jacket by the shoulders and listing off the features. Water-proof, heat protection (specially fortified under the gauntlets where friction would undoubtedly cause it to heat up,) semi-slash proof. Not bullet proof, unfortunately, but of course they all hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“And the material is incredibly absorbent, so if she’s bleeding a lot she can-- not that she’ll bleed a lot, but you know, just in case,” Fitz added uncomfortably. No one liked thinking of things like that, let alone someone who had been bleeding, _a lot_ not too long before. Phil flexed the fingers of his prosthetic. It was fine.

“Great,” he said, watching as Fitz folded it and placed it on the table. “And how do you clean it?”

Fitz’s eyebrow furrowed. “Clean it?”

Not anticipating this as an issue, Coulson tried not to frown. _He didn’t think about washing it?_ “Yes, clean it,” he said. “Sometimes clothes tend to get dirty.” He wasn’t trying to be snarky, but did he really have to explain this? In the field, people often got dirty.  _Or sweaty, or bloody._ He’d spent enough time with SHIELD to know exactly how unpleasant it could get.

(He’d also spent no small amount of time with Skye. _Daisy_. After missions, in recovery, in the field. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but she did not always smell like, well, daisies. No one did.)

“You said it’s water proof, right?” _And_ heat proof? That should keep it intact during a few rounds in the washer and dryer, he figured.

Fitz made a ‘hmm’ noise and tilted his head to the side. “I mean, well, yes, but repeated, prolonged exposure will degrade the material. Certain detergents might interact badly with-- I didn’t exactly focus on the cleaning bit,” he said, and Phil could see him growing restless. He tried not to ask too much of Fitz these days, knowing how poorly Simmons’ loss was affecting him, but he only asked what he thought he was capable of.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said instead, “we’ll take it one step at a time.”

* * *

Phil knocked on Daisy’s (closed) door.

_Never a good sign._

She nevertheless opened it, looking just about as tired as he expected.

“We lost another one,” she said in place of a greeting.

“I know, we’re getting closer though. We'll get the next one.” Nothing he could really promise, especially considering the apparent resources of the people getting to Inhumans before them, but Daisy knew him enough to know he was mostly expressing a strong hope. Phil was okay with her knowing he wasn’t sure about things, it was kind of a relief not having to put up that front.

“Oh, I have a question,” she said, and Phil noticed she had changed into her sweats.

_Hence the closed door._

“Do I just bring this down to laundry?” She asked, lifting up both parts of her suit from their place on the floor. “Fitz never explained--”

“I’m headed there now, actually,” Coulson interrupted, and Daisy looked at him strangely. “I have to pick up a couple things. I can bring it for you.” She seemed to hesitate for a moment before shaking her head.

“Yeah, no of course, thanks,” she said, looking around her room. She spotted a small plastic bag and tossed everything in there. “Sorry, it’s kind of funky,” Daisy joked, wrinkling her nose a bit.

“I’ve dealt with worse, believe me.” Phil took the bag, then gave Daisy another appraising look. “Are you gonna be okay?”

She gave him a tired smile and just nodded, so for some reason Phil reached over and clasped her arm. Encouragingly, he supposed. Whatever the reason it made her smile more, and that was enough.

 

Unfortunately, Phil hit a bit of a roadblock once he made it down to the laundry room. Jimmy, their resident clothes-washing aficionado, turned the pieces of the outfit over in his hands, perplexed.

“I’m not even sure where to begin, Sir,” he said, stretching the fabric slightly. “Hand washing might be best, spot cleaning, but--” he looked at the towering pile unfolded gear behind him. They were lucky they even had a minimal staff for that department, considering how much laundry they produced.

“I’ll figure something out,” Coulson said, catching the odd look Jimmy gave him. “What? I can clean.”

“Yes, Sir.”

What, was the director of SHIELD above a little work all of a sudden?

Taking the outfit up to his office, he set up in front of his computer. It wasn’t that he had a ton of spare time, but he could take a few moments to work on this. One less thing for Daisy to worry about, one less SHIELD-related thing for him to focus on.

It was no trouble at all.

* * *

 “Okay, there’s one _other_ thing I missed,” Daisy said, walking into the kitchen. It took Phil a minute, but realized she was referring to their talk from the night before. She’d missed something _in addition to him_. Because that was something she'd told him. Sort of. He didn’t have much time to think on that, however. “This is probably TMI but my laundry options weren’t the most stellar of amenities? I’m excited for this bad boy to get a thorough cleaning.”

She lifted the wadded up uniform up slightly, and Coulson tried not to panic. He put his coffee on the counter.

“I can take that down to the laundry room for you, I’m headed in that direction.”

Daisy’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked at the bundle in her arms. “Uh, I’m going to pass,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I think this is something best kept between a girl and the cleaning staff. Six months, Coulson. I don’t want to get graphic but--”

“Got it,” Phil said, picking up his coffee again and exiting the kitchen. “Good luck!”

She looked at him strangely as he fled, decidedly not in the direction of the laundry room. Phil wondered if maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be a thing. It had been a long time, maybe they’d developed new cleaning techniques. Jeffrey had a super suit ( _apparently_ ,) so someone on his staff must know what to do.

Shutting the door to his bunk behind him with his foot, Phil sat down at his desk.

 

It took approximately ten minutes before he heard a knock.

_Dammit._

“So, funny story,” Daisy said, walking right in after he opened the door. “Jimmy from laundry--he says hi, by the way-- says that he doesn’t know how to wash my suit.” She dropped the bundle of clothes on his desk, shifting a few paper slightly. “In fact, he never has. _In fact_ , he says that the last time he saw it was the first time, over a year ago, when you said you would ‘take care of it.’”

“Is there a question in there?” Coulson asked, shifting slightly as he shut the door.

“I guess I just would like to know when the former Director of SHIELD was planning on telling me he was hand washing my delicates.”

“Daisy, that’s not--”

She jerked her thumb toward the door, eyebrows raised. “Did you pass that responsibility onto Jeffrey too?”

Phil pressed his palm to his forehead, wincing. “I didn’t mean for that to be-- I just wanted to help.”

Daisy watched him for a moment, unreadable. He understood if she was upset; someone who didn’t spend years on missions with others in desperate times and close quarters might be less inclined to be okay with the idea of other people closely handling their dirty laundry.

“How do you do it?” She asked, and the question surprised him. “How did you wash it, if even the people being paid to do it didn’t know how?” Daisy rolled her eyes. “I lived out of a van for years and I couldn’t figure it out,” she muttered. Daisy leaned back against his desk, looking at him expectantly.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Phil shrugged. “The fabric was hard to work with, there’s nothing else really like it. But I did a little research. It’s tough but the key is using gentle soap and spot cleaning so you don’t saturate the whole--”

Daisy held up a hand.

“Spot cleaning,” she repeated, and Coulson nodded.

“They make brushes for that I guess, but a--” He looked up at her, a little bit nervous.

“Go on.”

“...A toothbrush works fine.”

“Oh god,” Daisy groaned, covering her eyes. Phil could feel his face heat up, and he was awash with guilt. While it felt nice to do at the time, in retrospect he could see how it might feel a little...violating.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, “I should have told you, but no one else knew how, not even Fitz. I didn’t want to worry you.”

Daisy looked at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Coulson, if I knew you were subjecting yourself to _this_ ,” she lifted a sleeve off the desk for emphasis, “I would have been fine with you ‘worrying me’ about it.”

Phil frowned. “It’s not that bad.” Now Daisy was red in the face. “It’s _not_ , you’re--you’re fine.” It really didn’t bother him, he was perfectly capable of separating the task from the...personal nature of what he was washing. Besides, it was Daisy’s. Someone he cared about and wanted to help in any way he could.

It just seemed so inconsequential, especially back then when there was already so much to worry about. It was grounding even, giving himself that small, straightforward task that took him back to helping his mom out, back when they didn’t have the luxury of a washing machine. It felt nice, useful in a way he hadn’t felt since he'd assumed the director position.

Maybe it was more about him than he thought, Phil realized shamefully.

Something on his face must have clued Daisy in, because she seemed to deflate a little bit.

“I’m not mad,” she began, and her voice made him smile slightly.

“You’re just disappointed?”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, then looked back at the suit. “I mean, I get that you were just trying to help, but I think I’m going to handle it myself now.”

Phil nodded profusely. Of course that was fine, he was just happy she wasn’t upset. Plus, maybe it would be a nice exercise for her, getting back into the swing of things. He was happy to step aside.

Stepping away from the desk, Daisy picked up the suit and considered it thoughtfully.

“Can you show me how you did it?”

Surprised and oddly thrilled, Coulson nodded.

* * *

“Honey, I’m home.”

Phil heard the exhaustion in her voice before registering the endearment, and he hurried to the front door. There he found Daisy attempting to kick off her boots, but failing.

“Let me,” he told her, and she leaned back against the door. Letting him lift her feet and pull of her boots one after the other, Daisy sighed.

“Honestly why did velcro go out of style?” She asked, flexing her toes in Phil’s face before he placed her foot back on the floor. “How do you think the media would take Quake wearing slippers, or those Ugg boots? Would it make me relatable and down to earth, or tacky and lazy?”

Phil frowned, examining one of the boots in his hands. As Daisy slid her gauntlets off and placed them on the end table. “If they’re uncomfortable we can probably get some new ones made,” he suggested. Daisy simply patted him on the head and walked past him, immediately collapsing face first on the couch.

“I’m fine,” she called before he even had a chance to worry, her voice muffled by the cushion. “Just gonna sleep for five to ten minutes. Or years.”

Picking up her boots he set them upright by the door before walking back to the kitchen. He hadn’t been sure what time she would be back, otherwise he would have been finished with dinner already. As it was he still needed a little bit longer, but that gave her some time to nap.

_Or not._

Daisy shuffled into the kitchen, and Phil felt her arms wrap around his waist from behind.

“Smells good,” she mumbled, pressing her cheek against his shoulder blade.

“Me or the stew?” Coulson asked, and Daisy lifted her head up, sniffing his neck loudly. Phil laughed, scrunching his shoulders a bit as her breath tickled behind his ear.

“Both,” she declared. “Me, on the other hand…”

She smelled like she always did after a mission, and sue him but Phil didn’t think it was bad in the least.

“You smell fine,” he said, wondering if he should be concerned by the slightly smoky scent emanating from her. Was that burned hair? That wasn’t so great.

“Yeah well, you would say that,” she said stepping back a bit. He turned to look at her, catching the challenging look in her eye. Daisy held his gaze as she unzipped her jacket and dropped her shoulders a bit to let it slide down her arms. Phil’s eyes were locked on hers, right up until she tossed the jacket onto his face, blocking his vision. “Want me to go, leave you two alone for a bit?”

Once they'd gotten past the initial awkwardness, Daisy began to poke fun at him a bit more for taking such personal care of her suit. Once they became lovers (and he re-assumed his laundry duties) she was even more bold with it, much to his amusement and embarrassment. Some days he couldn't so much as pick up a sock without a comment about him fondling her underwear. He'd earned that, he supposed. 

“Maybe,” Phil shot back, taking the jacket off his face and catching her amused smile. It dropped, and he was about to ask what was wrong when she stepped forward and gripped his chin in her hand.

“Hold on, I forgot something,” she said quietly, leaning forward and kissing him gently. Phil responded enthusiastically, dropping the jacket and pulling her in closer. He tried to play it cool, but even after routine missions he was so happy to have her home. Maybe that was it, the ‘ _home’_ part. Sure it was actually an apartment, but that didn’t matter to either of them, especially living out of planes and secret bases (and vans) for the past few years.

Dragging her teeth lightly over his bottom lip Daisy pulled him away from the stove, backing toward the kitchen table.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Coulson said between kisses, “Jeffrey said the security system was a hassle.”

“ _Please_ don’t bring him up right now,” Daisy groaned, pressing her forehead against his chest, effectively cutting off Coulson’s kissing privileges. He would pout, but it _was_ his fault.

“Sorry,” he said, giving the top of her head a peck as Daisy let out an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t entirely an accident, to be honest. He knew where this was going, and sure that empty kitchen table looked inviting _but_ she’d just gotten back and definitely smelled a bit singed, so there were other things they had to worry about first.

“It’s fine,” Daisy said, clearly not as worried. She pulled him back to her, gripping the hair at the back of his neck in the way she knew he liked (though there wasn’t much of anything she did that he _didn’t_ like) and kissing him heatedly.

 _Concentrate,_ Phil told himself, backing Daisy up until the table stopped them. Running his hands down her sides, Phil lifted the bottom of her tank top slightly, running his thumbs under the waistband of her pants.

“How about we remove these,” he said lowly against the side of her jaw, feeling Daisy nod against him eagerly. “And get you comfortable,” he added, into her neck. Daisy’s hands slid down to cover his, encouraging him to push the leggings down. “So I can finish dinner and get the laundry started,” he whispered into her ear.

Her hands froze in place.

“Are you seriously thinking about laundry right now?” Daisy asked, trying to pull away but realizing she couldn’t go far with the table behind her. Always obliging, Phil backed up to give her space.

“Were you seriously not going to tell me you caught on fire today?”

“Only a little bit!”

“A little bit is still enough!”

Daisy growled, placing her hands on her hips, right where his own hands had been moments before. 

“I’m fine,” she said, gesturing at herself. “You know the suit is fire proof, and we got it under control quickly.”

He looked her over. Her arms were free from any burns and the material of her pants didn’t look damaged in any way. “You know I worry,” he said, running a hand through her hair (and double checking that he hadn’t missed any injuries or burn marks.)

“Yeah, yeah,” Daisy sighed. “What was that you said about getting comfortable?”

“Your fluffy robe is in the bathroom with your slippers,” he said, steering her in that direction with one hand and picking up her discarded jacket with the other. Flicking the light on, he waved his hand. “Now, pants.”

Daisy grinned, scoffing a bit. “I can’t believe you’re asking me to take my pants off so you can _wash_ them,” she said, but followed his request. After handing him her pants, she proceeded to strip down completely, handing him each garment individually with a pointed look. Taking them, he smiled pleasantly. Daisy laughed. “I don’t believe you. Any other plans this evening, Agent Coulson?”

Phil smirked, leaning against the doorway. “Why do you think I only laid out the robe?”

“There he is,” Daisy said, pointing at him and grabbing the aforementioned robe. “You’d think I’d know better by now.”

“Don’t know what you mean,” Phil said, placing her clothes on the bathroom counter and pulling her robe tightly around her. Tying the belt, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. “Now go put your feet up.” He kissed her again. “I’ll finish up dinner.” Again. “Get this suit taken care of.” Again. “Then get _this_ taken care of.” He kissed her with some heat this time, just enough to count as a preview. Daisy made a little sound of approval in the back of her throat, which Phil took as his cue to get back to work.

Grabbing the pile of laundry he turned away, switching the burner under the stew off and heading to their cramped laundry room. The suit had seen a few upgrades, and while he enjoyed his renewed suit-washing duties, there just wasn’t time for it anymore, so he made sure Fitz actually took that into account on future designs.

After getting the wash started, he made his way back to the living room, where sure enough Daisy had put her feet up and was digging into a bowl of stew.

“Grabbed one for you too,” she said, and Phil saw another bowl sitting on the coffee table.

“Thanks,” he said, dropping onto the couch next to her, ignoring the food in favor of pressing his face into her fluffy, white-robed shoulder. He could practically feel amusement radiating from Daisy as he curled into her side, but Phil didn’t mind if she thought he was ridiculous. He was just happy to have her back home.

“So, I kind of caught fire today,” Daisy began, and Coulson listened as she detailed her day quietly, the rest of the world fading into background noise.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was silly. Also I wrote most of this before THAT moment in Lana In Love happened to my brain, but the Road to Christmas reference is totally intentional.


End file.
